• Question: Michael, how many cells would you grow a day? What types of cells do you grow? How do the cells you grow help people? What would the low cost reactor do to help you show the process of cell growth to younger people, and what will it do?

    Asked by Mini-mountain to Michael on 17 Nov 2015.
    • Photo: Michael Sulu

      Michael Sulu answered on 17 Nov 2015:


      That is a very good question and the first part is cell dependant. With the fastest growing cells the population can double every 20-30 minutes, that means there are 72 potential population doublings, so if we start with 1 single cell we’d end with 4722366482869645213696 in a day (so a lot!) and we start with millions!.

      I grow Bacteria, Yeasts, Fungi and a few mammalian cells, most of the cells either make something useful or have been specially engineered to make something useful, generally medicines.

      I think learning is easier when you are doing something and it is practically related, with a cheap reactor people could use it to learn about processes and how we go from growing cells to making medicines. The reactor will hopefully grow cells in the same way the large industrial ones do, and you will be able to measure the same or similar things so you can see how the industrial processes work.

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